She shivered, frozen to the spot, and looked around at the
stand of trees surrounding the camping site. She couldn’t see who it was, and
she thought they must be hiding out there. Lem tiptoed back over to the fire
and sat down on the rock, as the figure came out of the woods. Her heart
pounded against her ribcage, trying to break free of its confines. She could
see the outline of the backpack, and a wave of relief washed over her when she
saw the dreads on his head—just a backpacker.

“You scared me,” she said.

“I was separated from my group about an hour ago.”

Lem looked up to the sky and realized the sun hadn’t even
been up for an hour. Unease crept into her, but she plastered a smile on her
face as she looked at him.

“Did you see a man on the trail? About six feet? Beard,
probably unkempt hair?”

The backpacker shook his head. She sat on the rock warming
her hands by the fire, and she motioned for him to take a seat.

“I’m Ian,” he said.

She grasped his hand, noticing his knuckles were split
around the edges, like he’d been hitting something. He followed her eyes, and
she stared up at him, darkness staring back at her. She shuddered and pulled
her hand back too abruptly.

She nodded, but she didn’t believe him—the same feeling of
unease from this morning creeping back to her as she wondered where Mark could
be and whether the blood on the rock was his.

“Lem.”

“Unsual.”

“Belonging to God.”

“Huh?”

“It’s what the name means. It was my mother’s maiden name and
was stuck onto me like a fungus. Imagine being a girl and growing up with a
name like Lem.”

She didn’t know why she was telling him this, nervous talk,
because when she looked at him the feeling of dread seeped under her skin. She
wished Mark was here, or that she even knew where Mark was, but more than that
she wished the gun in the tent was in her hands. She thought about breaking
away from the campfire, going into the tent and pushing it into the space
between the elasticity of her pants and her skin. But, she thought, if Ian was dangerous then
she would be trapped. Coming out of the tent, he could easily accost her and
she didn’t want that. She thought about the split skin on his hands, the blood
seemed newly dried and this thought turned her stomach as she thought about the
little pool of blood on the ice. It could only be Mark’s.

“Would you like some bacon?” she asked, pointing towards the
pan she had left cooling by the fire.

Her breath was still coming out in vapor, but the world
seemed to be warming up now that the sun was peeking up from behind the
trees.

“Yeah, that’d be fucking great,” Ian said, and he leaned
forward to help himself to two pieces.

“So how does one get lost from their group so early in the
morning?”

He glared at her, and she felt an icy prickle, like a hand,
trail through her body alerting her to the danger this man seemed to
possess.

“Maybe you should be asking yourself that about—what’s his name?”

“Mark.” When the name came from her lips, she knew Mark was
past tense. She wanted to crawl out into the woods and look for his body, but
right now she had to protect herself from the monster sitting right next to
her.

“This bacon’s great.” The words from his mouth dripped like
acid, despite the benign nature of them.

She nodded, pulling her knees to her chest and rocking back
and forth, trying to warm herself up in a childlike pose meant to protect her
from things unknown.

“I think I’m just going to go to the tent, put another layer
on. You’re welcome to another piece of bacon.”

She set her feet into the dirt, and as she started to push
herself up from the rock his hand clamped on her wrist, a pair of handcuffs
meaning to trap her to this place. His fingernails dug into her skin, a grip so
tight she knew there was no escaping.

“I think you should stay here,” he said through clenched
teeth.

Her heart was beating so fast, a thousand tons sitting on
her chest, as the reality of the situation started sinking in. Sweat broke out
on her forehead, despite the coldness that seemed to drag itself into every
pore of her body. She wanted it to be a
nightmare. She wanted to wake up and roll over, feel Mark’s warm skin next to
hers and warm herself up with a morning coital.

The daydream faded as she realized Ian wasn’t going to let
go. Her eyes moved from his hands, split knuckles, dirt under the fingernails,
to his chest. When she saw it, she
gasped.

He had the necklace hanging around his neck—a token from a
kill? The Joshua Tree imprinted on the metal, the frayed edges of the shoelace
material laying along Ian’s neck, instead of Mark’s where it belonged. She had
bought it for Mark at Joshua Tree National Park about a month after they
started dating. He hadn’t taken it off since.

And she knew what this man was here to do.

He maintained his grasp on her wrist. With his other hand he
trailed his fingers against the exposed skin on her neck. She started
screaming, and as expected he clamped his hand over her mouth, the smell of
dirt and moisture filling her nostrils.

Lem tried to break away from his grasp, and was surprised
when the searing pain clouded her field of vision, and suddenly her world went
completely black. This is it for me, she
thought.

About Me

I'm a working mother of three small children! I'm on the PTA, and I love to be involved! My husband, Rob and I have been married for eight years. We love to have a good time, and mostly just survive every day with a full calendar! I also enjoy Tae Kwon Do.